Okey, Hafzah, you such a wicked writer cause you KILLED me!

This dark and beautiful fantasy inspired by Ancient Arabia that follows a girl named Zafira who disguises herself as a man to seek a lost artifact that will restore magic to her cursed world. Sounds cool, right? I loved her writing style, it was so beautiful that i died in it. I loved the details. And, oh, the cover! it just fit the story, like the name has given to me, i can't imagine if the book without this stunning cover, or use another cover style! Please give the cover maker a medal cause she/he is so BRILLIANT!

AAAAAHHHHH NOW I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE BOOK 2!

So the thing is: I love this book to pieces and I read it in almost two sitting, which both ended at 5am and left me very jittery and excited and with many ideas for lettering and art. You're probably wondering by now why I enjoyed this so much and I don't want to let you wait any longer.

First of all, I adored the setting. The story takes place in Arawiya, a kingdom inspired by ancient Arabia. Plus magic. There are five caliphates which are each unique and are known for their specialties. The caliphates are in danger of being overcome by the magical forest Arz, an impenetrable mass of trees. The forest spreads from the island of Sharr that has been used as a prison for evil beings in the past. I really enjoyed this world because it brings together all that is good with different evils you can't really see at first but that are there nevertheless.What made the setting even better was the writing. It was so beautiful, sometimes even a bit prosaic. It was detailed and descriptive. I could see Arawiya perfectly before me, I could smell it and could imagine being there with the characters. The pace of the book was quite slow at some points but in my opinion, this only added to the beauty of the story and its narrators.

Oh, and those characters! There are the main characters, Zafira and Nasir who narrate the story as well. Zafira is a hunter whose caliphate is cursed with endless snow. She is the only person known to return from the Arz with her mind and body intact. Zafira hunts to feed the people in her village. She usually keeps to herself or people who are very close to her. She is fierce and righteous and wants to help people. She fights for what she thinks is right, but she also has much to learn. Which she gladly does. She's smart and knows herself quite well. Zafira is quite sarcastic and doesn't take shit from anyone.Nasir is one of those bad guys who are actually super nice and have a good heart. And even though he is an assassin, he not actually bad either. He isn't much of a talker either and tries not to let other people too close. Nasir doesn't often show his sense of humor, but when he does it's always a snarky comeback that made me laugh so much. The two of them together is basically a "I hate you but like you and here, have some sarcasm"-battle and I love it. They come from two very different backgrounds but they just fit together really well.
The secondary characters each are amazing as well. Kifah is an elite warrior with a great sense of humor. She has a sharp mind and a spear just as sharp and she definitely knows how to use both of them. Benyamin is basically a mother hen. He keeps the group together with his calm. He balances out the heated temperaments of the others. The fifth member of their group is Altair who likes talking way too much and flirts with everything in his way. To be honest, he could probably charm one of the palms they've encountered. He definitely charmed me with his easy, fun character. He lightens situations easily but can also be serious if necessary (which isn't too often, apparently). Altair is my favourite character in this series and I love him.
Apart from the group, there's also Yasmine, Zafira's best friend from home who I hope to see more of. She's just as fierce as Zafira, but in another way.

Another important character is the villain. They are definitely a villain exactly to my liking. It was like I thought "please give me a villain like that again" and Hafsah heard it.

In conclusion, I am very much in love with this book and the problem of ARCs is, that I have to wait even longer for book two. I laughed a lot but I also had my eyes glued to the pages because I had a physical need to read and continue this story. It was so good from start to finish, ancient Arabia plus magic is a perfect combination, especially with such a great cast of characters! What a wonderful book!

Hafsah Faizal weaves her lyrical words into an enchanting story that grips the reader and doesn't let go. I found myself offended by anything that made me have to set the book aside for anything. Yet, once I finished, I wanted to shake the book to see if the next chapter would fall out! I hope Faizal can type quickly, because I'm going to need the next book ASAP.

So it would seem Hafsah Faizal went to the Sabaa Tahir school of breaking my heart and making me want more.

I knew I wanted this book more than any other, and that is the problem with ARC’s; once you have them and love them you then have to wait even longer for the sequel.

I haven’t loved a book quite like this one in a few years- possibly since Ember in the Ashes.It took me about two days to read and I was reading every spare moment I had, wishing I hadn’t started on a weekday so I could have devoted an entire sunday to Arawiya, but then I would have finished far sooner and...I’m probably going to reread as soon as I finish writing this.

The writing is beautiful, lyrical even. Faizal weaves an enchanting, magical world, a feat considering her world has lacked magic for a hundred years. That’s what we are after though: magic. The island of Sharr has it and everybody wants it- all for different reasons, though.

And...Zafira. And Nasir. And Altair. I can’t- I love the zumra and I don’t want to part with any of them. All three need a vacation and some intensive therapy, but I love them all and can’t handle Bad Things happening to them. Maybe in the next book they can go to Disney World or something. Leave the swords at home. Ride the teacups. Just a suggestion.

I digress. These characters and this world feel very real. They feel like people who have lived in this particular world and couldn’t be plucked up and dropped in another and function the same way. They make decisions based on their history, their surroundings, their knowledge of how their particular world works. This time around they have had to make decisions based on their abilities to hunt, fight, and compromise- an ability few of them had and had to acquire as their situation became more desperate. Given the ending, and the change of scenery, I assume we will be seeing how the characters handle the politics of Arawiya in the next book, while dealing with the repercussions of their time on Sharr. Especially since the different regions of the country are no longer separated by the Arz, the imposing forest full of what can only be dark magic. Each region has run like its own individual fiefdom for so long, it’ll be interesting to see what happens when they are able to come together (I fear chaos because, again, Faizal studied at the Tahir School of Heartbreak).

Read this book. Read this book and talk about this book and tell other people to read this book because it is gorgeously stunning and I want more.

Before going in, I knew this was going to be an emotionally wrecking read. From Hafsah's eerie messages about what's to come (specifically in Act III, which broke me, thank you very much) and comments from my friends who've finished the book, it was clear that I should've read this at a less busy week. 

Which is exactly why I read it four days before my three midterms! 

All jokes aside, We Hunt the Flame is an incredible book. I'm an avid lover of fantasy novels, but very rarely do I find one with such vivid descriptions of world-building and unbelievable attention to detail! Everything in the novel is well-thought out—the architecture, characters, language, food, traditions, romance, angst, fluff....everything. It's pretty hard to wrap my head around the fact that this is a debut novel because it was just so fucking good. 

In the land of Arawiya, there is a cursed forest known as the Arz, and only Zafira is the known person to make it out of it alive, relatively unscathed. She lives as The Hunter, an infamous character—almost like a legend—in the nation to feed her caliphate with hunt taken close to the Arz. No one knows her identity nor her gender but the people closest to her. When Zafira's offered the opportunity to go into the Arz to bring back magic to Arawiya and destroy the wretched forest once and for all, she's quick to say yes. 

Meanwhile, the Crown Prince of Arawiya, too, lives a double life. Nasir has no choice but to live as the Prince of Death, assassinating everyone who stands in the way of the crown by the command of his father. Nasir has a lot more blood on his own hands than he bargained for, but he has no room his own beliefs. After all, it's either risking the Sultan's brutality or following orders. Nasir's eventually told to venture into the Arz, collect the same artifact, and kill The Hunter in the process.

There are very few words I could give you that perfectly encapsulate how I felt reading We Hunt the Flame. Time and time again I come across novels that take me to a different world as I turn the pages, but We Hunt the Flame sets itself apart. No other book or series could perfectly illustrate a whole kingdom with five different provinces in less than five hundred pages. It was so easy to immerse myself in Arawiya, and even more so with the specific caliphates. 

The characters also stood out to me. Zafira and Nasir come from completely different backgrounds—one in poverty and one in royalty—but they both come together perfectly. They're incredibly brave, flawed, charismatic, and have both suffered way more than they deserve. The side characters (hello, Altair ) are just as alluring and have as much of a background and arc as the main characters, which is something rarely seen in this genre! 

I haven't made it a secret that I'm obsessed with the enemies to lovers trope, but Hafsah was able to put together SO MANY of my favorite ones too: slow-burn romance, high-stakes action, jaw-dropping character development, and found family. These elements blend perfectly to form the best fantasy debut of 2019, for sure. 

We Hunt the Flame completely blew me away. This book deserves all the hype it gets (AND MORE), and I'm so thankful that I can play a small part in spreading the word. I am most definitely wrecked after that ending (I sent Hafsah a crying selfie that was not the most flattering one), but it also means that readers get to revisit the universe in the second book with even higher stakes, action, and (hopefully) romance!

I have been waiting for this book for two years. I have begged everyone under the sun to get me an ARC of this book. Then I was selected to be a part of the street team. Because of that, I was given an eARC by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review, and I shook with anticipation as I opened it and finally got absorbed into the world of Arawiya.

This book is by Hafsah Faizal. It has 480 pages. It releases in May. It is a YA Fantasy.

It is one of the most wonderful books I have read in two years, and I can’t wait to tell you about it. Let’s get started.

The first thing that drew me to this book was the fact that it is an Arab-inspired fantasy. You guys know me, fantasy is my jam, but when I hear ‘Arab inspired’ it takes less than two seconds for me to already be on board. Hafsah does not disappoint.

She paints a world together with words that is so easy to get lost in. From the use of Arabic words to the places that they travel, this story bleeds Ancient Arabia. She paints such amazing details, it’s almost jarring to come back to the real world when you’ve been in the pages for so long.

Not only that, but she gives you characters that make the journey that much sweeter.

I had a lot of crazy thoughts about this book (most of which she was informed of over Instagram DM) (sorry Hafsah), but what I think makes this book that much sweeter is the relationship between Nasir and Zafira. I think the best thing she could have done for these characters is make them mirrors of each other, which she pulled off in such a stunning way.

I don’t want to get too into it, but they’re truly two halves of the same coin.

I think every single character in the main zuram is incredibly rich and well developed. I loved Altair and Nasir’s reluctant bromance, and Altair is arguably my favourite of the bunch (outside of Nasir because who doesn’t love a grumpy cinnamon roll with grey eyes). His humour and wit is something that I strongly identify with, and I lost track of the amount of times he had me laughing throughout. I know that there’s a lot more to him than banter, but the banter that he had was pure gold.

I also really liked the depth that she brought to Benyamin and Kifah. They didn’t have to have a lot to them. They could have just been a warrior and a safin, but she added that extra layer. That extra bit of story to their characters that just made it that much better.

I also think that this book has a couple of themes that we really need to discuss, one of the most important ones being the unity that all of the characters display. They are from five different caliphates. They have five different motives, five different end goals in mind, but at the end they’re working together as an entire unit for a common purpose rather than allowing themselves to be divided by petty squabbles and things that aren’t important.

I don’t know if she intended it to be an overarching commentary on today’s political climate, but it definitely worked out that way because I think that we’re all different, but it’s time for us to be united and come together as one just as these five people did. Though they’re in a desert, and we’re in our own land.

I also really liked that this journey they’re on was part of the driving force behind their character development and their self-discovery. They all start out with their own goals and motives, their own prejudices, and their own burdens. But as they travel further through the desert, they start to unload and come into their own as people.

Zafira, as an example, grew up in a world where her merit was in something she did disguised as a man, in a society that did women no favours and made sure that people knew that women were to blame for the downfall of said society. That women had no value, no worth, and if she had just been born a man then everything would have been better for her.

As she crossed through the desert, her identity becomes her own. She is Zafira, not the Hunter. She is herself, and as she becomes more and more sure in that she grows more into the person she was meant to be.

The same goes for Nasir. The fictional love of my life, Nasir bin Ghameq. The assassin. The Prince of Death. Shaped by darkness, and afraid of the emotions he has kept away for so long. His lesson is more of an emotional one. That emotions aren’t something that have to be feared.

Each of them learns from the other, each of them grows stronger and better because of the other.

I really, really hope that you guys decide to pick up this book because every single page is a marvel. I hope that you guys decide to pick up this book and fall captive to the Sands of Arawiya, just like I did.

I hope that you pick up this book, and you bring the desert to it’s knees in the reading of it.

Thank you for Netgalley for the lovely e-arc.

I got a pretty good moment with this book. The world building is so good, the writing is amazing and the characters make me laugh, cry and smile. I loved how she mixed everything. Zafira, Nasir & Altair are such my babies. They are all three different but so amazing when they are together. The relation between Altair/Nasir is so funny and when you put Zafira between them this is even more. Zafira is such a strong woman and i'm so glad we can have a representation of woman like her in books.

In conclusion,this is such a pretty good one and now I'm so excited to re-read the finished copy (just to see what change she made).

We hunt the flame is a story that definitely isn't afraid of dropping you into this world and letting you find your own way around. The action stars from page one and doesn't stop at all. The characters in this book are spectacular and this book should be one everyones list.

Zafira - disguises herself as a man (The Hunter) to trek into the cursed Arz to feed her people.

Nasir - (The Prince of Death) tasked with ending those who dare cross his father, the King.

Both have personal demons to slay.
Both have had hard, trying lives.
Both have watched happiness slip through their fingers like desert sand.

When both are sent on a similar quest to find a lost artifact - The Jawarat - their world's collide. Zafira's mission is to uncover the artifact and restore for the good. Nasir's mission is to take the lost artifact and kill anyone who stands in his way - including The Hunter for he is no match for the Prince of Death.

We Hunt the Flame is a slow burn (the slowest of burns!), Arabian tale with rich details, fleshed out characters, creepy creeptastic monsters, HOT chemistry, jaw dropping reveals, and an ending that has me more than a little nervous. While the story did drag for me more than a couple of times, it had nothing to do with the writing (which is lyrical; soooo many beautiful quotes!), but more the setup of the chapters at times which prevented the story from really taking off at certain points for me. Nonetheless, an absolutely solid fantasy debut that has me drooling for book 2! Can not recommend enough!

This was a truly stunning book that I finished in one sitting. I did not want to put it down! I really liked the characters and the use of Arabic throughout the book. It was done really well and Hafsah did a great job of making sure that you still were able to understand the Arabic without having to try and translate it yourself.

I will definitely be recommending this book as often as I can! The ending left me wanting more and I can’t wait for the next book and more from this author!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan for giving me the chance to read and review this book early!

This was a stunning debut - I connected easily to both main characters and was completely invested in the plot from day one. I adore the world Hafsah created and can't wait for book two. I will be posting a full review on my blog and Goodreads closer to release day.

The first half of this book is a bit slow but once you hit the halfway mark it gets much more interesting! We need more diverse fantasy and this was so good. Technically I'm giving this 4.5/5 but that is still a really high rating. Thanks to the publisher for the advanced copy.

This book was received as an ARC from Macmillan Children's Publishing Group in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

When I first heard about this book I did not know what I was in for. This was by far one of the most interesting J Fantasy books I have read but also one of the most confusing books I have read. I am in love with the storyline and the character of Zafira. I always think the story takes a brilliant turn when the main heroine has a strong name. While reading this book I got a sense of similarity with the setting of Shakespearian times where all men were set to act and work and in this setting Zafira had to disguise herself as a man in order to feed her kingdom and get credit for all her achievements??? Plus, the character of Nasir as I was reading sounded very intimidating and gruff but as I read on and hearing about the war and the conflict it brought to Arz then the story picked up and got good. However, due to some vocabulary and scenes midway through the book I would not classify this book as JFiction but YFiction.

That is why we give this book 3 stars.

Hafsah crafts a masterful story using beautiful prose and action sequences. The characters in this story are believable and are likable. I also enjoyed how the stories are intertwined and connected. Overall, this was a very enjoyable story.

This is a book is one of my most anticipated 2019 releases and I am blown away by how fantastic it is.

Everything from the banter to the world-building to the plot twists to the main and secondary characters to the antagonists was AMAZING.

Trust the hype people.

I also love how Arabic was said throughout the book.

I think half my eARC is probably highlighted with funny scenes, inspiring scenes, beautiful scenes, and just plain pretty prose.

This book has all of the epic banter from Six of Crows series paired with the pacing and violence of An Ember in the Ashes with the world-building of The City of Brass. So if you're a fan of any of those, then you'll love this book.

The characters are awesome. I love them all. Even the secondary characters are well-fleshed out. The friendships are great. The book is pretty high stakes. I want to protect my children at all cost.

And I'm still screaming about that ending.

Content Warnings: murder, slavery, torture, imprisonment, mention of suicidal thoughts, mentions of child abuse, mention of suicide, violence, gore, war